Party time

 I went to a JALT (Japan Association for Language Teaching, a professional organization that I help found) and afterwards many of the attendees went out to eat, drink and talk. We went to a "Beer Garden". These are almost always found on the roof of large department stores and are open during the summer. For a fixed fee, you get to eat and drink as much as you want for two hours. The fee here was 3200 yen. There is a large variety of food plus beer, wine, sake, and soft drinks. I used to enjoy these very much, but now that I do not drink and eat a lot less, being there is fun but it is not very cost effective. By the way, I am the one in the center, wearing a green shirt and a hat.

 I decided to move and talk to some different people. It is like a cocktail party where you move around and try to spend time with as many friends as possible.

 For some unknown reason, someone suggested that we all hold our shibori in front of our faces. A shibori or more often in the honorific form Oshibori is a damp cloth to wipe your hands and face before and after eating. Here the shibori are actually paper towels that come wrapped in plastic. They are standard in cheap restaurants.

 One thing that I found very interesting about the Beer Garden was that it contained a Shinto shrine. I planned to go over and try reading the sign but somehow never got around to it.

The next day as I walked down the levee along the Nanakita River, I was a truck bringing in what was obviously equipment and supplies for repairing the earthquake damage to the bridge.